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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148562">A Line of Silver</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernwood/pseuds/wyvernwood'>wyvernwood</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Arguably Dubcon, Grief/Mourning, Impact Painplay, M/M, Soulbond Shares Feelings Between Partners</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:41:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,963</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148562</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernwood/pseuds/wyvernwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin's husband disappears. Kevin has a good reason to think he must be dead. But Evan isn't dead -- only different.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grieving Widower/His Husband Who Came Back Wrong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Writing Rainbow Silver</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Line of Silver</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamebucket/gifts">shamebucket</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kevin's friends teased him about his husband's name rhyming with his own. </p><p>"Kevin and Evan," his friend Mark, who Kevin had met in second grade, had singsonged, "sitting in a tree."</p><p>"Someone has it in for you," Evan's friend Derrick opined, thumb jerking skyward. </p><p>Being made fun of hadn't mattered to either of them. Neither had the differences in their backgrounds, schedules, work history, nothing. Not even their minor incompatibilities in the bedroom. </p><p>When they met, Kevin had just reupped his Air Force enlistment for the second time. Evan was in grad school. Kevin shipped out for months at a time; Evan worked twelve-to-fourteen-hour days in the lab. Their courtship had taken place in intense stolen hours, a week of sleepless nights, whispered hours-long phone conversations, text chats across timezones and oceans, occasional video calls when they could find matching holes in their schedules. They got married at Christmas when Kevin was on leave and Evan's lab was closed for the holidays.</p><p>During the honeymoon, in a moment of downtime between fucks, his husband had introduced Kevin to his latest research: quantum bonding. "Spooky action at a distance," Evan said, his lips quirking into a half smile. The pillow mussed his hair as he turned his head to look into Kevin's eyes. </p><p>Kevin barely managed not to kiss those lips, because he wanted to hear the rest of this. "Phone sex isn't spooky, but it's action at a distance," he said instead. He made a suggestive gesture, though it was too soon for him to get hard again. </p><p>"Not that kind of action." Evan was always second guessing everything he said, including this time, because, "Well, it could be. The thing is, if we are quantum bonded, we feel what each other feels. Not quite as much, depends how much of it's in the spine versus the brain, electric versus chemical, and how far we are apart in space --"</p><p>Kevin couldn't follow the technobabble, but he loved listening to Evan talk about his work, for the passion that he could hear in Evan's voice. "No matter how far apart, I'll always fly home to you," Kevin said, because the wedding had made him sentimental. </p><p>He could see Evan biting back something. Probably one of his pronouncements of doom. Evan worried a lot about Kevin being killed. "Mmm," he said, not whatever it had been going to be.</p><p>Negative thoughts weren't unreasonable for Evan to be having. Flying a bomber was dangerous. Mostly to people on the ground beneath, but the enemy had fighters, guns, anti-aircraft artillery: there were risks. "In that case, you'd at least know if something happens to me." He wanted to stop that line of conversation. It'd been long enough of a refractory period, and doom wasn't great pillow talk. Kevin took himself and Evan in hand and there was no more talking for a while.</p><p>After the honeymoon, Evan had sneaked Kevin into his lab. Though he'd doubted the entire time, Kevin wouldn't have said so to Evan, and his doubts had been assuaged. The quantum bonding worked. When he was on leave, in the same city as Evan, Kevin had a sense of his husband's emotional state at all times -- felt the irritation or sleepiness or elation or contempt as Evan went through his work day, felt Evan's love and contentment when they were together, not only his own. It was nice. Sex was enhanced, the pleasure of each shared by both. </p><p>The connection also extended to pain. When Evan stubbed his toe, Kevin's toe hurt. And Evan was a bit of a masochist. He had told Kevin, encouraged Kevin to be rougher when they had sex, but once they had the bond, Kevin started to understand just what it was Evan really wanted. Kevin tried, and Evan got what he needed, but Kevin could feel it too and, even though he also could feel Evan's enjoyment, it wasn't enough to make Kevin entirely into that -- that sort of thing. They compromised.</p><p>They worked out ways to make it good for them both. That's what marriage was all about, Kevin thought. Figuring out how to make both partners happy with things they both enjoyed. They weren't really together enough for it to become a problem, what with Kevin's months-long deployments and Evan's workaholic tendencies. As he got promoted at the lab, Evan's long hours got longer, sometimes round the clock. </p><p>It was Evan who'd figured out how to use the link to communicate. Pain was the one thing that was sent even when they were thousands of miles apart. Emotions were too faint at that distance; pleasure was barely a warmth; but pain made it across. Not quite as strongly as when they were nearer, but pain alone was very little reduced  by separation.</p><p>When Kevin's superiors cracked down on comms, when Evan's lab started keeping an internet air gap to prevent hacking, they were still able to converse by little bursts of pain in Morse code. It didn't have to hurt that much; Kevin didn't mind it, compared to the benefit of keeping in touch. He'd bite a knuckle or fingertip in rhythm and tell Evan he missed him, about something funny he'd been thinking, hear about Evan's arguments with his mother or what awful thing his lab cafeteria had served them for lunch. </p><p>Kevin never compromised security. He didn't tell Evan where he was, what missions he was flying, nothing dangerous. His superior officers didn't need to know. </p><p>It had always been the pilot soldier husband they'd both worried about. Not the civilian scientist one. But it was Evan who vanished from the conversations one night without warning.</p><p>Kevin tried for a week. He grew more and more frantic. What could he do? How could he find out what had happened? There was no way to explain how he had any clue that anything was amiss with Evan. He couldn't tell anyone he'd been able to chat with his husband every night when none of his squad mates had had more than a heavily reviewed letter from their own families in weeks.       </p><p>He wrote a letter to Evan, asking how he was doing, and another to Evan's parents asking about Evan. Kevin had to word them extra carefully so as to avoid giving any clue to his and Evan's secret.</p><p>It was another three weeks before his answer arrived. Three weeks of nothing but dread, no Morse code at all. His husband was gone. The letter from Evan's mother said that no one had seen her son since, by the date she gave, the same night he'd first failed to answer Kevin's secret greetings. "We have a missing persons registration with the civil service," she wrote, "but they say there's little hope after two weeks. His lab says he wasn't working the night he disappeared, and that he failed to show up or call in on his next shift."</p><p>Mugged... kidnapped... fallen into the river and drowned. Kevin's imagination came up with terrible scenarios one after another.</p><p>As it turned out, they were all wrong.</p><p>Kevin was given compassionate leave -- bereavement leave, it would have been, had there been a body found, but as it was, Evan was in limbo. Kevin was sure he was dead. He mourned. He spent a week sitting on the sofa staring at one video program after another on a screen, and couldn't remember a single scene from any of them. </p><p>He had three days of leave left before he had to go back. Kevin wasn't sure if he could be ready or not, but it wasn't like he had a choice. The Air Force was very particular and he'd signed an enlistment contract. It was go back or go in the brig. Kevin took a shower for the first time in a week, stood under hot water till it started to run cold, then let himself freeze. There was something refreshing about the cold. </p><p>His fingers were prunes and he was shivering by the time he stepped out of the shower and toweled himself dry. As he turned off the vent fan and opened the bathroom door, Kevin heard an unexpected sound. Someone was in the house.</p><p>He dropped the towel and ducked behind the door in a defensive crouch. No burglar would get the drop on him. </p><p>But the sound wasn't so unfamiliar. It couldn't be Evan, but maybe? Hope he hadn't thought he still had in him came back to life within Kevin.</p><p>What the hell, he thought. If it was a burglar, was it that bad? Kevin decided to take his chances. He had to see who this was. And what if it really was, by some miracle, his husband? So he walked naked through the house to the bedroom, where the sound was coming from. </p><p>"You look terrible." The first words he said to his husband in six weeks. At least, the first where Kevin knew they'd been heard. There had been so many nights in those six weeks that he'd spent sending Morse into the void, to no response, not that he'd expected, but some part of him had always thought, maybe this time. Hadn't been able to let go of hope.</p><p>"You don't look great yourself." Evan's voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "I'm so glad you're here. I didn't know if you would be." </p><p>Kevin put his arms around Evan and squeezed. He could feel Evan in his arms, yes, but the link? He felt nothing from it. No pressure of being held, no pleasure of reunion, no pain of the tightness of his strong arms. "I can't feel you. What happened?"</p><p>Then -- a trickle. He felt a faint shiver of apprehension from Evan, a faint warmth of relief. The link might be less now, but it wasn't gone. Evan twisted out of his grasp, took a step backward. "They -- they discovered we were talking. How we were talking. So they stopped it." His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. "I can't feel anything, Kevin." Evan ran his nails down his arm, leaving red marks behind. </p><p>Kevin felt nothing.</p><p>"I don't feel that. So, you don't feel that, either." Evan spread his arms. "It's gone. I don't... I can't take this, Kevin. I can't take not feeling anything. You have to help me." He grabbed Kevin's hand, squeezing tightly. </p><p>Kevin's hand started to ache, but it was Evan holding it. He wouldn't pull his hand away. It didn't hurt that much.</p><p>"I can feel that," Evan whispered. "I don't feel anything for myself, but I still feel what you do. They didn't take that away from me."</p><p>"But you," Kevin began, and stopped. </p><p>Evan stepped closer again. He ran the back of his nails along Kevin's upper arm. His fingers wrapped around Kevin's bicep, thumb finding the nerve plexus, pressing down. Ow. It hurt -- Kevin let him do it. </p><p>And there. A flood of endorphin release from Evan, a huge relief shared between them both. "Yes," Evan breathed.</p><p>"But you can't," Kevin said. </p><p>"I know you won't -- won't want me to -- I need this, Kevin. I need you. It's been so long, I haven't felt <i>anything</i>, and you know --" Evan's lips firmed in determination. "You can't deny me this," he said fiercely, still hoarse, but determined.</p><p>And Kevin found he couldn't. </p><p>He let Evan tie him down the way he'd tied Evan the last time Evan talked him into this. Although this time there was less talking and more wordless pulling. Kevin thought he would be fine. He'd felt Evan's pain through one of these sessions, hadn't he? He'd been able to know when to stop very precisely because he'd felt it too. A big advantage. He hadn't so much enjoyed it, but he'd been fine. He'd liked feeling Evan enjoying it. </p><p>This wouldn't be so different, just because it was Kevin being tied up and flogged, instead of tying Evan up and flogging him. They'd still both be feeling the same things. </p><p>It wasn't until Evan had started that Kevin remembered the important difference: when it was him doing the flogging, he'd been able to stop when the pain was more than he wanted to deal with. Evan's idea of enough pain was a bit beyond Kevin's idea of too much of it.</p><p>But by then it had already started. The first lash of the flogger stung. It didn't hurt that much, but it did hurt, and it wasn't pleasant to Kevin. But there was also Evan's feeling, right there, finally, after so long without it, and that was more than pleasant. That was beautiful, comforting. And there was Evan's palpable relief at finally feeling something, and his pleasure at what to him was a bare hint of the pain he had come to crave with the desperation of the starving. </p><p>Again, again, the same combination, varied only in the proportions. Kevin's body was used to other sorts of discomfort, too much acceleration, overexertion, the cramping of being cooped up too long in a cockpit too small to fully extend his legs. It was not used to sting meant to be pleasurably painful. </p><p>He started to get the sense of how this masochism thing worked. It was kind of exciting, anticipating the next thwack, the light stinging sensation. Kevin could sort of see why a lot of people enjoyed it. But it wasn't exactly turning him on. And when the ends of the flogger hit spots he'd been hit several times before and were probably still red, they stung too much to seem like the pain held any pleasure in it. </p><p>It wasn't yet as bad as where he would have stopped, when he was doing this to Evan. But he might as well try. "That's enough, right? You feel better now, babe? It helped?" </p><p>"It's starting to," Evan said, "I love you so much. That you'd do this for me. That you care so much about me. I don't ever want to lose you, Kevin." And he kept going. </p><p>"You aren't going to lose me," Kevin managed. More blows. "Fuck. Stop, okay? A breather."</p><p>"Almost," Evan said. "I'm close. To where I can stop for a minute." </p><p>The next few blows were harder. White-hot pain. "Evan! Fuck!" Kevin couldn't get words that made any sense into there. The next ones after that, all he managed was a wordless yelp. </p><p>"All right, a minute," Evan said. He rummaged through the top drawer of his dresser, found the salve he'd bought for Kevin to put on him after using the flogger. </p><p>The salve was cool and soothing. Kevin took his first deep breath since the scream. "You're okay now, right," he said cautiously. "Let me up. I think I've had enough of this."</p><p>"It'll be all right," Evan said. "Just a little more. Please. It's been so long, I need to really feel it. It might be the last thing. I mean, you might not let me do this again?" He sounded wistful. </p><p>"We'll get you fixed," Kevin said, not sure it was possible, but it had to be. Whatever had been done to Evan, it had to be reversible. "You'll be okay."</p><p>"But until then," Evan insisted. "When I need it? You'll let me?"</p><p>Kevin sighed. It had been bearable, right? He wasn't sure, but he was still okay, he thought, he was all right. "You're my husband. Whatever you really need. I've got you." </p><p>"Thank you. I'm so lucky. Only a little more. I promise." </p><p>"Wait," Kevin said.</p><p>It didn't feel like only a little more. Evan was inexhaustible. His arm had to hurt, Kevin knew from his own experience, wielding that flogger so hard, but that was right. Evan didn't feel his own pain at all right now. Only Kevin's. And there was a lot of Kevin's to feel. </p><p>It was disturbing when he got hard, it was Evan's arousal doing this to him, coming through the link. And when he came, everything started to hurt so much more, he hadn't thought it was possible to hurt this much all over. </p><p>But that was, finally, enough. Evan untied him and gathered him in his arms, rubbing the salve into the marks he'd left all over Kevin's body. "I thought you were dead," Kevin sobbed, relief making him cry for the first time since he'd got home. All the tension was going out of him, all the fear that he was alone again, that he'd lost the great love of his life. </p><p>It emptied out and was replaced with misgivings that he tried to suppress. That wasn't easy.</p><p>"The people who did this to me are going to come after me," Evan said. "We need to go, soon."</p><p>"I'm back on deployment day after tomorrow," Kevin managed, swimming up out of his daze into quotidian memory. "Maybe we can get you some kind of protective custody."</p><p>"Don't let them separate us again," Evan said.</p><p>Kevin began to drift off. What would his squadron think of the bruises from this, he thought, and were they likely to end up separated again no matter what they did? But he thought too that if he told the right superior officer the right part of the truth, the two of them might end up in the same military laboratory. That might be their best chance to stay together. </p><p>That, too, Kevin thought he'd do. If it was what he needed to do to be with Evan.</p><p>Marriage was about finding the way that would work, in the circumstances that existed, no matter how far from ideal. They'd find a way. Drifting to sleep with his arms around his husband, Kevin thought that he would make sure he found a way.</p>
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